


A Dirge and a Sunset

by JellyfishPublishing



Category: Classicaloid (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Death, Mostly from Schubert but some of it was from the Author, Thoughts on last incarnation's life and death, Yes it's one of those kinds of fics, lamenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JellyfishPublishing/pseuds/JellyfishPublishing
Summary: Franz Schubert should remember that, to be in purgatory, he must be dead.Kind of an odd detail to skip over.





	A Dirge and a Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> A.N. So this was a request during a binge of answering all the story requests I had piled up on the day of the last Classicaloid S2 episode. I'm still somewhat hopeful for a season three but I'll get these requests on here so I can show you guys some of the new fics I still have for Classicaloid. 
> 
> I would say this is set more in S2 with Schubert reverting to his old persona. I do think it's before episode 19 of that season.  
> I hope you enjoy~! <3

In the beginning, it took a lot of time for Schubert to acknowledge the fact that he was probably dead.

 

To be fair, it was hard to think of such a thing when he was trapped in some Fae-driven purgatory.

 

All the signs were there, really: the strange, offsetting world that surrounded him, the strange language that he understood almost better than his own German tongue, and he was trapped here with that _rat_ , Mozart. He had a landlady that made him pay rent (in fact so much of this horrible world made him pay for every little thing, even _water_ ) and, worst of all, his beloved Muse, the great and fantastic Beethoven, hated him.

 

Or, truthfully, he just seemed to ignore him.

 

No matter what he did, how he praised him, how fervently he followed his every move, Beethoven never truly acknowledged him.

 

Worse yet…..Schubert would stand to the side, jealously gazing at Mozart, who fitted himself to Beethoven’s side as though he was _made_ to be there.

 

Another horrid reality inside this nightmare world.

 

So, again, (before he gets distracted once more) he truly would forget from time to time that to be trapped here…..he must be dead.

 

How fitting, then, that he should be reminded of this fact by the music of his senpai.

 

—————-

 

He’s not sure why he came here.

 

This purgatory has so few places to go to be alone (perhaps another feature to the unending, diabolical list) but he has found the only place to be alone is at this tiny, child-like park at dusk. As long as he isn’t making too much of a scene, any passerby would shoot him a side-eyed glance, but ultimately leave him be.

 

He is not expecting anyone to care about a sad, lonely looking man sitting on the children’s swing set. He doesn’t imagine anyone will care about said man as sits and stares despondently at the sunset, as though trying to absorb the gold and orange glow setting the discolored world he’s trapped within aflame and allowing him the only reprieve he has left from its cruel reality of kites that whisk him away and houses filled with terrible, classless geniuses.

 

He is not expecting to see anyone he recognizes or, for that matter, someone who lives almost perpetually in his thoughts.

 

“Senpai?” Schubert asks, unsure of if some dream-like enchantment has been placed over him to envision his dearest person right before him.

 

Beethoven’s eyes spot him but they hold him with little regard, as they always do, and he doesn’t even greet or wave to him. The best Schubert gets is a lift of those thin, erratic eyebrows; even this cannot lift Schubert’s spirits.

 

Beethoven must sense this because, as Schubert turns his gaze away to stare more at the fading light on the horizon, the other man moves closer and starts to speak.

 

“The Young One and the rest were looking for you.”

 

Schubert doubts that. He can’t even imagine why any of them would be looking for him except to, perhaps, harass him about the rent. It’s at the reminder of rent money that has Schubert starting to feel a little shamefaced and it cuts through the deep despair. He has not only embarrassed himself but also probably lost that job.

 

Schubert thinks of what to even say to Beethoven or about any of his thoughts, but the only thing to come out is “Ah.”

 

Beethoven stands there, his features starting to look pinched and it’s only after a moment that Schubert expects that Beethoven-senpai may have–!

 

“Senpai, did you….did you come looking for me?” Schubert asks, softly, breath caught as he turns to the other man with wide, hopeful eyes.

 

Beethoven seems to flinch at this and looks away, crossing his arms, “I always take my evening walk by here. I told her I would say something if I saw you.”

 

Schubert’s face falls and he looks away, the melancholy hitting him back tenfold.

 

“Ah,” he repeats.

 

Schubert goes back to staring at the sky, his heart sinking as he watches the outer edges of purple-pink clouds grow wider, their tips melding with the midnight blue of the oncoming evening. Later, when the sun finally dips below, fading out of sight and leaving him only the memory of its gentle warmth, he’ll have to go back to the house. He’ll have to explain to the Landlady about what happened at the music store and about why he’s very sorry but he didn’t get the job.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

Schubert turns back to Beethoven, surprised he was still standing there. He blinks and isn’t sure if he’s hearing things. The way Beethoven is staring at him, those verdant eyes sizing him up the way they do in Schubert’s dreams, in his private moments, and again, he cannot help but believe he is simply hallucinating the other man at the moment.

 

“I had nowhere else to go,” Schubert says, unable to neither pull back the misery from his voice nor smother the whining tone at the end. His head lowers and his shoulders fall, his whole body seeming to sink even further into the swing as he plays back his thought process coming here.

 

_What place will let me pretend?_

 

How sad. How sad that he didn’t want the comfort of a hot meal or a friend’s willing shoulder. How sad that he had neither to fall back on, to make this limbo world and all its lukewarm highs and its abysmally ice-cold lows any bit tolerable. How sad that the only thing he has is the vanishing image of a sunset in a children’s park because he truly had nothing else.

 

He was a dead man or, perhaps more aptly, the shadow of a dead man.

 

Schubert doesn’t know when it happened but one moment Beethoven is there, at the edge of the park, a solemn, far away figure lit by the dying glow of the sunset, and suddenly he was standing right by Schubert, moving to the other side. His beloved senpai plops down into the swing by Schubert, the swing itself swaying a bit by the sudden weight and their knees brush just slightly as it swings Beethoven. Schubert goes stock still, jackhammer pulse and burning ears, and tries not to stare at Beethoven, his knee, or the very small and sudden distance between them. He just stares, stiff as a board, at the last sliver of the sun.

 

Beethoven sits next to him, watching the same scene in absolute silence.

 

Together, they watch the world become dark. It’ll be a few minutes before the moon will become visible and the weak starlight from above will do nothing to help cut through the pitch black curtain. The lights from streetlights, the space between them like long stretches of dark silence, help to reveal and comfort any evening visitors that the road is still there, and so is the sidewalk, and all that they knew in the daytime hasn’t been swallowed up by the night. Schubert turns to trace the barely visible lines of Beethoven’s face with just his eyes and is compelled beyond all reason to tell him. He wants to tell him that he knows. He knows that he’s dead, that when he started weeping during the interview at the song playing on the record player, the owner had remarked on not only Beethoven but Schubert as well.

 

_“You’ve got the name like the famous guy,” she had said, handing him her handkerchief, “You even got a thing for Beethoven too.”_

 

He wants to tell Beethoven that the lady showed him Schubert, Franz Schubert, who Schubert may not even really _be_ , and showed him his date of death. She showed him a picture of his grave.

 

He wants to tell Beethoven that, despite the morbid sight, he’s quite glad if only for the fact that they were buried close to each other. He wants to tell him that that was the only fact that kept him from screaming but couldn’t stop him from running out the door, running out of the shop, and running all the way here. It didn’t stop Schubert from sinking behind a nearby tree and sobbing, gasping for breath, because he is a young man, _was_ a young man, and there was so much he had wanted to do. There was so much he wanted to see. He wanted to tell him there’s still so much he wants to do…!

 

He wants to tell him that if the reason Beethoven is here, in this hell, because Schubert wanted him here so badly that he gave up his soul to do it, that he is really and truly sorry.

 

He doesn’t say any of it though.

 

“Senpai?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“….You’re welcome.”

 


End file.
